


Inexorable

by weakzen



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Cipher Watcher, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 03:32:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15900030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakzen/pseuds/weakzen
Summary: The Watcher attempts to mitigate the effects of Vatnir's chime with a cipher spell. Rymrgand has opinions on her efforts.





	Inexorable

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Beast of Winter DLC & Pallegina's Deadfire quest
> 
> Thank you to @alwaysashroomsman on Tumblr for the idea of a cipher using the Pain Block spell on Vatnir

She began to strip before the door latched shut behind her.

First, her jerkin and boots dropped to the floor. Then her tunic. Her trousers. Her socks and her smallclothes. All of them fell in a trail behind her as she shambled forward, until she stood nude before the bed.

He snapped his book shut as she approached, inhaling and leaning back as she climbed atop him, but even he didn't stop her momentum. She continued over him, rolling ungracefully to the side, and toppled facedown into the mattress.

A satisfied, muffled sigh escaped her lips as she lay there and finally closed her eyes.

The bed was comfortable, as was the cool air drifting in through the window. And the linen sheets were deliciously soft against her skin. Her body felt so… heavy, amidst it all. Every part of her. Like she could sink through the mattress, pierce the sheets, and fall into something wonderful, maybe—if it weren't for the headache pinning her in place.

Somewhere in the past half-decade, she'd actually acclimated to the dull and chronic malaise that came with focus deprivation, but she'd never experienced it this acutely. The throbbing ache, the fatigue, the vague dizziness and nausea, all of it felt more like the crash that followed ascension, except her crashes never lasted longer than a few moments.

Or, at least, they hadn't before.

She heard the book gently thump onto the side table, then felt Aloth shift next to her. His hand settled onto her back and rubbed circles in the curve of her lower spine.

“Busy evening again?”

“Not really,” she muttered into the sheets. After a moment, she summoned the strength to flop herself over and stretch out her limbs, yawning deeply as her joints cracked. She exhaled, then collapsed into a heap. “I'm just… tired.”

“So I've noticed.”

A weak grin pulled at her lips as she glanced at him.

“Oh yeah? What else have you been noticing?”

“Only the obvious,” he said flatly, giving her a ticklish pinch that made her squirm. The corners of his mouth curled upwards briefly before pressing into a frown. “This isn't the first time this week I've seen you like this. I'm becoming a bit concerned.”

“And here I always thought you liked it when I slept naked.”

“I was speaking of your exhaustion,” he said, rolling his eyes. He gave her a pointed look, though color still bloomed across his cheeks. “You've seemed… _off_ , lately, ever since we set sail from the iceberg. When you're not above deck staring at the ocean for hours, you're collapsing into bed, too tired to talk or keep up with your meditations.”

“Amongst other things,” she added, her grin widening.

“Well _, yes_ , but—” His flush deepened. “That's not really what I'm worried about.”

Seraphina chuckled and rolled on her side to face him. “Then what _are_ you worried about? Besides my obvious exhaustion.”

He glanced away.

“Nothing really, just…” he began, then trailed off. A sigh of resignation sounded in his throat and he looked back to her. “Well, I've noticed you holding Vatnir's hands a lot lately, too.”

She raised her eyebrows, then her torso began to quiver with silent laughter.

“What, are you _jealous_ , Aloth?”

“I'm not sure.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “Should I be?”

“I don't know. You tell me.” She smiled herself then, biting her lip as she slid her hand to his jaw and caressed his cheek with her thumb. “Who, exactly, am I in bed with again—even if I am too tired to show my appreciation and give him a proper tumble?”

He rolled his eyes again, this time in fondness, amusement pulling at his mouth and softening his features. Then, he cupped her face and pressed his lips to hers, rolling her onto her back as he leaned over her. Her arms curled around him and her hand twined in his hair. She pulled him closer and, for a long moment, they kissed each other softly, until he broke away to nuzzle his face against her own.

“…Is everything okay, at least?” he asked quietly.

“As okay as it ever is,” she whispered back, tugging at the sheet between them. “Would be better, though, if I were under there with you.”

He smiled against her, then pulled back, enough so that she could slip under the sheets and cuddle into him. To her delight and amusement, he wasn't wearing anything either.

“Feeling a little warm tonight or something?” she teased, offering him a mischievous grin as she ran her hands over him.

“Only when you're around.”

He gave her a sly, knowing smile and she chuckled, then settled her head in the crook of his shoulder. Her eyes fell shut and she sighed contentedly as they lay together.

“…Nothing's wrong, Aloth,” she said softly, after a few moments. “I've just been… trying something new. A cipher experiment, I guess.”

“Oh?” His breath tickled against her forehead.

“Yeah. Ever since we left the Void, I've been wondering if there was anything I could do about Vatnir's chime. Not removing it or severing it, I mean, but I thought it might be possible to mitigate its effects and give him some relief, at least.”

He inclined his head. “How so?”

“An extensive, modified pain block, essentially. I've been testing different variations on him almost every evening.” She pursed her lips, her mind briefly wandering to the variables she hadn't yet implemented. “…I'm still tweaking it right now, though. But, I figure once I get it just right, it'll be easy to apply when I'm ascended and it should last for quite a while from there, a few days if I can manage it. Long enough, anyway, that I shouldn't need to pull from my own reserves anymore to apply it.”

“Given the frequency of which we seem to find ourselves imperiled, I suspect that won't be an issue,” he said dryly. “Has it been effective, in any case?”

“I think so?” She shrugged. “His essence hasn't changed, unsurprisingly, but he says he can actually sleep through the night now, and that it hurts less when he coughs and moves around. He thinks some of his wounds might've begun to heal, too.”

Aloth hummed quietly. “He has seemed a bit livelier as of late, come to think of it. I even saw him eating at the table with everyone in the mess the other day, rather than sitting in the corner.”

She smiled. “That's good to hear.”

“Well, it's good of you to help him.”

Heat flushed across her face and she fidgeted uncomfortably.

“I suppose. I know I'm not really fixing anything, not permanently.” She paused for a moment, biting her lip. “…Pallegina and I also talked to him about what she did to her chime. And I've offered to take him to Giacolo's new lab, more than once, but… he's ambivalent about going that far. He said I shouldn't be pushing him to do it either, when I haven't even had it done myself.

“I know it wasn't kind of me,” she continued, “but I laughed in his face when he said that. I asked him why I would need to cut my chime before he does, when the worst thing I have to suffer is that stupid joke people make about whether or not I can actually see anything. I told him that my body wasn't the one decaying alive, that my chime wasn't causing me constant pain—and that he didn't have to accept or endure a lifetime of that either, regardless of what his so-called _father_ said.”

She sighed again, long and wearily as her temples continued to throb.

“Rymrgand's 'gift' is nothing but abusive fucking cruelty.”

Aloth pressed his cheek against her head and rubbed her back. “I don't think there are many kith, alive or dead, who would disagree. But I doubt that would sway him from ensnaring any more mortals with his chime.”

“Yeah, well—why would it?” She huffed in disgust. “After all, we mortals are nothing more than pointless dust, right? Hard to care about dust, I guess, especially when it refuses to wipe away cleanly, and insists that it has an important purpose—”

A sharp crack whipped across the cabin from behind them.

They both startled upright, her lethargy and pain forgotten as she reached for the knife beneath her pillow. She turned to locate the source of the noise, only to find a few splintering, jagged lines spreading across a pane of glass, like something had struck the window. A second fracture snapped loudly a few panes over. Then a third, then more, until violent, sonorous crackling overwhelmed the cabin and the temperature began to rapidly plummet.

Pocks of frozen crystal burst from the walls and ceiling and floor. Rime surged from them, coating the timber and carpet in ice. Her knife burned frigidly hot in her hand and she tossed it away. Next to her, Aloth barely managed to abandon his grimoire before smoking frost encased it whole. She scrambled for the covers then, pulling them up and around her body. But even the blankets weren't spared the incessant freeze, and they soon became a prison of stiff, crusted folds trapping the both of them against an even colder mattress.

Across the room, she caught a glimpse of ghostly, sparkling hoar coating everything before their lantern, too, succumbed to the cold and guttered out.

In the darkness, she and Aloth gasped next to each other. His arms snaked around her and pulled her roughly against him, and hers followed in turn, wrapping around his waist and under the shelter of hair covering his neck. She twined her legs between his and he squeezed back tightly. Plumes of fleeting warmth billowed past their lips as they breathed heavily and shivered into one another.

The snap of ice slowed to intermittent popping and, beneath it, something rumbled almost imperceptibly. The vibration increased rapidly, intensifying to a shrill and piercing wail that lanced into her skull like a needle. Pain exploded across her temples and a burst of white flooded her vision. Distantly, she heard Aloth call her name as she cried out, but she couldn't form the words to speak in response. Her eyes scrunched shut around the feel of knife blades and her head pounded so violently even her teeth and horns hurt. Sweat began to prickle across her skin and her stomach lurched with sickness. In desperation, she scraped at her meager focus reserves and scrambled to subdue her panic, pushing her mind into a rough flatness to ready her powers.

But, to her horror, as she blinked open her mind's eye to use them, something overwhelming and impossibly sharp rushed forward to stab it shut.

_Should I wipe you away now, Watcher?_

Fresh agony seared her mind while Rymrgand's unmistakable voice cracked across her consciousness. It resonated deeply, shuddering and groaning like a colossal sheet of ice straining to keep its hold on a glacier. Aloth squeezed her tighter and she knew he heard it too. The noise rumbled through her for a long, excruciating moment until it eventually calved. As it splintered and fell away, so too did some of her pain, enough that she could speak again.

“Well,” she gasped, her heart thumping wildly. “Think I could probably clump into one of Eora's weirder-looking dust bunnies, if you let me roll around a while longer.” She briefly clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering, then swallowed hard. “I meant what I said too. Your gift is cruelty.”

_And your efforts with my progeny are a misguided act of futility. You expend your limited energy and hasten your decline in exchange for nothing, as you readily admit yourself. Yet, you persist, knowing the only place your exertion truly leads is to your own gradual destruction._

_Your self-diminution in this regard is… exquisite._

Something shifted in her then, a sense of blinding sunlight on the snow mingled with pleasure.

She blinked.

“Uh, thanks?”

_I will permit you to continue your endeavor, to your end or to those you would wrest essence from instead. But you will do so with the knowledge that I will reclaim what is mine from Vatnir should he ever attempt to sever my chime._

The pounding in her head increased, pressing into one continuous ache as the implication hit her.

“You'll kill him? Is that what you mean?”

_No._

_His death would only be an incidental effect._

Aloth exhaled against her neck. “So either Vatnir lives with the pain or somebody else does,” he mumbled.

_Entropy is inexorable. Any fleeting reprieve from it demands a sacrifice. To stave off pain, you must invoke the suffering of something else._

_That is your entire existence._

“What's _your_ existence, then?” she rasped. “What are you staving off through his suffering? You're a god. Nothing forced you to put your chime in him. You could have spared him the pain you _know_ it causes, but you didn't.”

_I will spare him. Eventually. In the meantime, who will receive temporary reprieve and whose suffering will provide it is a concern I leave you to decide._

_Ultimately, it matters not._

She whimpered as the pain cinched around her head and began to crush inward. Her eyes watered and every breath of dry, cold air she took scraped her throat and lungs. It was becoming hard to move, hard to speak, or even think, but it was more difficult than anything else to remain silent.

“…Okay, entropy will claim everything someday. Fine. So what? We're still here, until then, alive before the Wheel turns again. This flash of existence is all we'll ever have, all we'll ever know, and that makes what we choose to do during it the _only_ thing that matters. On our scale, your ending is just as meaningless and unimportant to us as our mortal lives are to you.”

Something shifted in her again, vague contempt while a gale blasted at a mountainside.

_You are, undoubtedly, Berath's spawn. Only one of their brats could possess such a shackled understanding of life and death._

“And only a god made from the souls of the most nihilistic Engwithans could think his view of impermanency is the only one that's valid.”

_It is the only one that will endure, and even I can appreciate that irony._

An amused snort escaped her nose.

“Well, I hope your ending is the everything and the nothing you want it to be, when it finally comes.” She closed her eyes and buried her face in Aloth's neck. He hugged her tighter and she did her best to return it with her numbing hands. “I'm gonna use my scrap of time to keep helping the people around me,” she muttered. “I don't care if it doesn't last, or if I don't benefit from it myself—it's still always worth it to do right by others and slowly build towards a better world.”

Something shifted in her once more, an avalanche of laughter tumbling free to roar destructively down a slope.

_Your better world is littered with the corpses of kith who professed similar sentiments,_ _whose proud words failed to survive even the meager duration of their_ _individual_ _lives._ _I look forward to seeing_ _how quickly time will erode those same lofty ideals in you_ _as well_ _,_ _Watcher._

_Until then, I will be keeping an eye on you._

Seraphina and Aloth flinched as a soul-piercing crack sliced across the room. Their lantern flickered back to life and the ice covering everything splintered, shattered, then disintegrated into powdery vapor, filling the cabin with a fine mist that smelled of ozone and decay. The temperature steadily climbed as it dissipated, until the air returned to that of balmy, tropical night. Cold still lingered in the sheets, however, and in their trembling bodies, the last, deteriorating evidence that something had ever been amiss.

Aloth sighed, then slumped against her. She absently rubbed his back while he shook his head and stroked hers in turn. As warmth prickled painfully back into her hands and feet, whatever sharpness had lodged into her mind's eye melted away too, rolling a sense of frigid wetness across the crown of her head. Only when she shivered from it, and let loose the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, did she notice that all of her pain and fatigue had vanished as well.

She wasn't quite sure what to make of that.

“So… just the one eye then, huh? Not all five?”

“Seraphina…”

“Bet he always _will_ be watching, too,” she muttered. “You know, just to satisfy his obsession with length and duration, not 'cause he's a pervert or anything.”

“Please,” Aloth said against her skin. “What is the _one_ thing I asked you not to do anymore?”

She sighed and leaned away to look at him.

“Sass the gods.”

“And what are you doing right now?”

“Sassing the gods, I know. I'm sorry. I'll stop.”

“Thank you.”

Aloth pulled her back to him and nuzzled his face into her neck as they held each other.

“…He's still a jerk, though,” she added a moment later. “And don't give me that look, 'cause even he admits—”

She yelped loudly and suddenly then, squirming against him while he trapped her with one of his arms.

“Admits what?” he asked innocently.

“Your hand is— So! Cold!”

“Not for long, it isn't.” He gave her a sly smile. “I'm only warm when you're around, remember?”

She laughed, shook her head, and kissed him.


End file.
